Comments on: News Roundup: New Bus Lines

By: Snah

Snah — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 18:36:52 +0000

Won’t a two-lane express tollway take a general purpose lane from 405?

WSDOT is studying express toll lanes on 405. What bothered me about that article is they didn’t even link to the report!

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/tolling/eastsidecorridor

By: downintacoma

downintacoma — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 17:40:35 +0000

All else equal, would that (a fully-tolled 405) be the worst possible outcome?

By: Bernie

Bernie — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 07:53:08 +0000

Bellevue just beginning to think about redesigning the I-90 corridor around Eastgate.

Just beginning to think about it is certainly a misrepresentation. This was a study session which presented a lot of work that has been on going for years and the next step in preparing something akin to the Bel-Red development plan. My recollection from the meeting was the study area represented about 25,000 jobs. Downtown Bellevue is about 40,000 jobs. Percentage wise that means Eastgate at ~20% puts downtown Bellevue at a little over 30% of all the jobs in the City of Bellevue. In contrast, downtown Seattle employment represents something like 50% of the jobs in the entire City of Seattle (2% of it’s land area and more than double the jobs in all of Bellevue). Sort of tells you why a tunnel with, what five underground stations, makes sense in Seattle and any sort of tunnel under Bellevue is dubious.

By: Jojo

Jojo — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 06:36:10 +0000

I know! Why don’t more people use them? I’m a broke student making $11 an hour yet I don’t mind paying the $1.00 or $2.50 to bypass the 10 miles of stop and go. I use it each morning and I love it.

Converting a general purpose lane to HOT isn’t a good idea because 405 only has 2 general purpose lanes per direction. If they were to convert one of them to HOT, might as well toll the entire freeway??

By: aw

aw — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 05:09:09 +0000

More on Bellevue’s “vision line”:
http://www.publicola.net/2010/02/05/dont-put-a-light-rail-station-next-to-a-freeway-data-edition/

By: Sam

Sam — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 03:05:47 +0000

“Neighborhoods always regret keeping light rail away.” I clicked the link, read the article, which talked a little about Gresham’s MAX line, and I wanted to learn more, so I googled Gresham MAX, and up popped this article:

75 year old man beaten on Gresham MAX platform by two teenagers with a baseball bat will get $75,000.

http://www.oregonlive.com/gresham/index.ssf/2010/01/sandy_man_beaten_on_gresham_ma.html

By: Crazy Man

Crazy Man — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 23:40:50 +0000

I heartily agree.

There are way too many bridges and tunnels as well.

Infrastructure should be removed; not rebuilt; in many places.

By: archie

archie — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:20:01 +0000

If only highways were held to the same standard…

By: Joshua Kelley

Joshua Kelley — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:16:50 +0000

I remember that from when I was little at my brother’s 5th birthday party. It had a different paint scheme then. And it was probably the only low floor bus in the fleet, too.

By: Jason Mitchell

Jason Mitchell — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:56:26 +0000

As someone who knows transportation planners who have spent time at CTA, I have a real problem with the “such putzes” claim. They have super-smart and progressive folks doing a lot of great work over there. CTA is in a perpetual budget crisis due to a totally jacked-up funding structure that conservative and suburban/rural interests refuse to amend. Sound vaguely familiar to anyone?

More to the point, five seconds on google reveals that the UIC grad student is bearing all the costs of the (sweet) mobile garden project. So step off.

By: Martin H. Duke

Martin H. Duke — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:57:46 +0000

Thanks, fixed.

By: Crazy Man

Crazy Man — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:17:27 +0000

Do HOT lanes work? They were big news 2 years ago when they converted 167. However, my own experience is that they are almost never used except by the few 2+ cars.

By: Crazy Man

Crazy Man — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:16:26 +0000

Financial commitment…great idea!

No longer will projects be done simply to bring in Fed money regardless of whether they’re needed or not.

By: Chris Stefan

Chris Stefan — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:00:42 +0000

No, I don’t know if CTA is paying for it, but if they aren’t they need to make sure everyone knows that as it could be perceived as a way they are wasting money rather than providing transit service.

That said this is kind of neat.

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:58:36 +0000

It looks like the Eastside HOT study didn’t include converting general purpose lanes into HOT lanes, which is too bad — that’s a way the HOT folks might be able to pull in support from the transit-supporting side of the world. (Or maybe it just wouldn’t work — I don’t know…)

By: Al

Al — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:14:13 +0000

Ah, you already had this link.

By: Al

Al — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:12:07 +0000

A rethink of the RR Route in West Seattle?
http://westseattleblog.com/2010/02/rethink-the-west-seattle-rapidride-route-sw-district-council-says#comment-722077

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:05:37 +0000

Truly low floor. That’s really funny. :)

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:04:55 +0000

Are you sure CTA’s paying for those mobile gardens?

By: kent

kent — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:59:25 +0000

On the “neighborhoods trying to keep light rail away” – I agree that this article. It always amazes me that anyone tries to project the negatives that will surely follow. When you could go to any number of cities ( I lived in Portland ) to see what “actually” happens. The development and property values in Portland have been very positive. There is no need for fear of the unknown, when you can go and look at it in operation.